What if when the hatches finally open out of the UFOs come thousands of 100ft Native American Indians? We're going to be watching like "F%&# those are huge Indians! Please tell me they're not huge Indians."

I must say, I'm excited about the possibilities of our offense against VCU's defense. We are a great transition team and if we can get Burke with the ball and numbers a few times I feel we have a great chance of winning with style.

This is the first time I've seen VCU this year. Color me impressed. #30 is a sniper, and VCU is very good at attacking the rim. I think we'll get plenty of easy looks in transition, but VCU seems like a team that won't go away easily.

You're only looking at one side of the coin. We're a bad matchup for them. Every time teams have kept their turnover rate under 22% (IIRC), VCU has lost. We have the lowest turnover rate in the country (9.4%). Not to mention that they give up a lot of transition baskets, and we thrive in the open court.

Also, John Beilein is familiar with Smart's press - it's based on what Oliver Purnell used at Clemson, whom we faced in the 2009 tourney. If you recall, we beat that press easily despite having walk-ons at PG.

They play 12 guys, so it's not like they're all out on the floor for 30+ minutes... I think they'll keep the intensity up just fine, just gotta have Burke stay calm under pressure and I could see us running away with it.

If I'm not mistaken, they also were in the play in game when they made their deep tourney run and seemed to overcome rest issues then. Granted that was not the same group of players, but their style of play and depth is essentially the same.

Bo Ryan would find a way to suck the life out of that match up. He would purposefully take 9.5 seconds to get past half court against the press, then milk the next 25.45 seconds before resorting to a Frank Kaminksy shot clock special.

Personally, I'm more of a Brad Stevens fan. Brad Stevens recruits in a tough region against some real powerhouses and coaches up his players. I don't really like the VCU "havoc" defense, as I think it is a little gimmicky and ends up being better in a tourney setup than it does in an conference setup because I think it loses some of its efficacy with familiarity. That being said, both would be great hires, but I wonder if 5* recruits would be that gung-ho about playing in VCU system, as they may be looking for something that translates more closely to the NBA, etc.

He will eventually - he's only 35. But note that he inherited a VCU program that had already been built up by Jeff Capel and Anthony Grant. He's done a great job keeping the momentum they established going, but has never had to rebuild.

Problem is that happened two years ago, and VCU, who has no business doing it with their AD budget, gave him a huge raise . I think a he is around 1.5-1.7 per year. He has a good salary and no pressure, at least not like BIG or ACC type pressure.

Question is, does his system play when he can recruit legit talent? Would they want to play that style? Bballers want to play somewhere that can get them to the NBA on a year or two.

Alford did the same thing Tubby Smith did - leave a school where he was on the hot seat before they could fire him, for a less-prestigious program. He didn't do very well at Iowa. He succeeded Tom Davis, who had them in the tourney pretty much every year, and performed at about the same level as Amaker here.

He has done extremely well at UNM, though. It must be as mind-boggling to Iowa fans as Amaker's success at Harvard is to us.

Do not attempt to run with VCU. I know we have great athletes, but this team plays 12 guys every game and just goes all game. You get the ball into half court and sprint back, when we break their press we only take the shot if we have a layup or a dunk.

VCU is very entertaining to watch. I really hope we play the game we want against them because that's the best team I've seen in the tourney so far.

In MSU game they were literally grabbing the ballhandlers arms as they drove by. Also, the picks are more like O Linemen engaging rather than a pick. It sure makes for some ugly basketball when the ref's ignore these things and others.

Amaker recruited well enough. He landed Daniel Horton, Dion Harris, Lester Abram, Epke Udoh, Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims, to name a few. But his teams were always really careless with the ball and also seemed to fade as the year went on.

Missouri continuing the trend of terrible postseason play from the SEC.. why, oh why, did I pick a team from this awful conference in the Final Four? That damn Florida pick is going to just ruin my bracket.

It appears that the teams that beat VCU got to the free throw line. That might be one way to slow their insane pace. I don't see how people commenting here could not be impressed right now. I don't care if they're playing a middle school team. These guys look really good.

Basically, two players were asked if Smart would call off the dogs. One responded by saying only if they were up big with a couple minutes remaining. The other said they would still press, just not trap, and that he has never heard Smart tell them to stop pressing.

I dont normally watch anything other than Michigan games but it seems like almost every game tonight has had a flagrant foul reviewed and called. Here is one now in the Montana-Syracuse game. Is it a normal thing to see this much?

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers. -Mahatma Gandhi

IT'S CALLED HAVOC FOR A REASON. Thats the problem with the society today, everybody want everyone to take their foot off the pedal. No you stop me if you don't, I will score 100 and beat you by 50. good approach Shakain trying to send Michigan a message. I hope our kids are watching .

That's one of the most short-sighted posts I've ever read. There's a thing called pride in the world. You don't gain more by kicking a team when it's down. If you're up less than 20, I can see it. When you're up 45 against an already weakened team, it's just being a douche to keep it up.

Please. If 50% of a company's staff was caught stealing you would immediately question the institutional organization of the company. The chance that half of a blow-off class at Harvard came to the conclusion that they should cheat is an indication that the class was constructed in a way that encouraged it.

So i guess you guys wasn't a fan of the Running Rebels in the early 90's. you can get hurt trying to take it easy also. If that is their style to go full speed all the time, you got to play at that pace. last thing: S-E-C S-E-C

I guess it doesn't matter if they respect your conference (Mountain West) or "disrespect" it (SEC). They both stunk up the place. Although the SEC teams shitting the bed after the UT coach running his mouth makes me laugh harder.

has the #1 conference RPI. They have 1-3 record to show for it in the NCAA tourney with a lone win from Colorado State who beat a very soft Missouri. They should bow out against Louisville. SDSU may have a chance to beat Oklahoma but they won't go far in the next round with Georgetown coming up soon if they beat FGCU. That means, they're likely to have a NCAA tourney record of 2-5 which is terrible for the supposedly best conference in the country.

Meanwhile, the computer and humans(except for NCAA tourney committee who rewarded MWC a ton with favorable seedings and punished B1G for beating up on each other) thought the B1G is head and shoulders above any other conferences in the country. So far, so good. MSU and Michigan handled Valpo and SDSU with relative ease. I am expecting all of the B1G team to win the 1st round.

Speaking of West Region, OSU suddenly have an easy road to the Final Four as long as they take care of business.